by P. D. James
“The suggestion of foul play is, of course, ridiculous. If there had been any suggestion that the death was other than an accident, the evidence would have been brought out at the inquest.”
But there was, of course, a third possibility and it was one which was in all their minds. The verdict of accidental death had come as a relief to St. Anselm’s. Even so, this death had held the seeds of disaster for the college. It hadn’t been the only death. Perhaps, thought Father Martin, that possible suicide, had overshadowed Margaret Munroe’s fatal heart attack. It had not been unexpected; Dr. Metcalf had warned them that she might go at any time. And it had been a merciful death. She had been found by Ruby Pilbeam early the next morning, sitting peacefully in her chair. And now, only five days later, it was as if she had never been part of St. Anselm’s. Her sister, of whose existence they hadn’t known until Father Martin went through Margaret’s papers, had arranged the funeral, had come with a van for her furniture and belongings, and had cut the college out from the obsequies. Only Father Martin had understood how greatly Ronald’s death had affected Margaret. Sometimes he thought that he was her only mourner.
Father Sebastian said, “All the guest sets will be occupied this weekend. Apart from Commander Dalgliesh, Emma Lavenham will be arriving as arranged from Cambridge for her three days of lectures on the metaphysical poets. Then Inspector Roger Yarwood is coming from Lowestoft. He has been suffering from severe stress recently following the break-up of his marriage. He hopes to stay for a week. He has, of course, had nothing to do with the Ronald Treeves investigation. Clive Stannard is coming again for the weekend to continue his research into the domestic lives of the early Tractarians. As all the guest sets will be in use he had better go into Peter Buckhurst’s room. Dr. Metcalf wants Peter to remain in the sick-room for the present. He’ll be warm and more comfortable there.”
Father Peregrine said, “I’m sorry that Stannard is returning. I hoped I’d seen the last of him. He’s an ungracious young man and his pretence of research is unconvincing. I sought his views on the effect of the Gorham case in modifying the Tractarian belief of J. B. Mozley and it was apparent he had no idea what I was talking about. I find his presence in the library disruptive and so, I think, do the ordinands.”
Father Sebastian said, “His grandfather was St. Anselm’s’ lawyer and a benefactor of the college. I don’t like to think that any member of the family is unwelcome. Still, that hardly entitles him to a free weekend whenever he fancies it. The work of the college must take precedence. If he applies again the matter will be tactfully dealt with.”
Father Martin said, “And the fifth visitor?”
Father Sebastian’s attempt to control his voice was not altogether successful.
“Archdeacon Crampton has telephoned to say that he will be arriving on Saturday and will stay until Sunday after breakfast.”
Father Martin cried, “But he was here two weeks ago! Surely he’s not proposing to become a regular visitor?”
“I fear he may. Ronald Treeves’s death has reopened the whole question of the future of St. Anselm’s. As you know, my policy has been to avoid controversy, to continue our work quietly and to use what influence I have in Church circles to prevent closure.”
Father Martin said, “There’s no evidence to support closure except the policy of the Church to centralize all theological training in three centres. If this decision is rigidly enforced, then St. Anselm’s will close, but not because of the quality of our training or of the ordinands we produce.”
Father Sebastian ignored this restatement of the obvious. He said, “There is, of course, another problem in regard to his visit. The last time the Archdeacon arrived Father John took a short holiday. I don’t think he can do that again. But the presence of the Archdeacon is bound to be painful to him and, indeed, embarrassing for the rest of us if Father John is here.”
It would indeed, thought Father Martin. Father John Betterton had come to St. Anselm’s after some years in prison. He had been convicted of sexual of fences against two boy servers in the church of which he was priest. To these charges he had pleaded guilty, but the of fences had been more a question of inappropriate fondling and caresses than of serious sexual abuse, and a custodial sentence would have been highly unlikely had not Archdeacon Crampton busied himself in finding additional evidence. Previous choir boys now young men, had been interviewed, additional evidence had been obtained and the police alerted. The whole incident had caused resentment and much unhappiness, and the prospect of having the Archdeacon and Father John under the same roof filled Father Martin with horror. He was torn with pity every time he saw Father John almost creeping about his duties, taking Communion but never celebrating, finding in St. Anselm’s a refuge rather than a job. The Archdeacon had obviously been doing what he saw as his duty, and perhaps it was unfair to assume that duty had not, in this case, been uncongenial. And yet to pursue a fellow-priest so remorselessly -and one for whom he held no personal antagonism, indeed had hardly ever met seemed inexplicable.
Father Martin said, “I wonder if Crampton was altogether well -himself when he pursued Father John. There was something irrational about the whole business.”
Father Sebastian said sharply, “In what way not altogether himself? He wasn’t mentally ill, there’s never been any suggestion surely… ?”
Father Martin said, “It was shortly after his wife’s suicide, a difficult time for him.”
“Bereavement is always a difficult time. I can’t see how personal tragedy could have affected his judgement where the business of Father John was concerned. It was a difficult time for me after Veronica was killed.”
Father Martin had difficulty in repressing a slight smile. Lady Veronica Morell had been killed in a hunting fall on one of her regular returns to the family house she had never really left, and the sport that she had never been able, nor indeed intended, to give up. Father Martin suspected that, if Father Sebastian had to lose his wife, this was the way he would have preferred.
“My wife broke her neck out hunting’ has a certain cachet lacking from ‘my wife died of pneumonia’. Father Sebastian had shown no disposition to remarry. Perhaps being husband to the daughter of an earl, even one five years older than him and with more than a passing resemblance to the animals she adored, had rendered unattractive, even slightly demeaning, the prospect of allying himself to any less elevated woman. Father Martin, recognizing that his thoughts were ignoble, made a quick mental act of contrition.
But he had liked Lady Veronica. He recalled her rangy figure striding along the cloisters after the last service she had attended and braying to her husband, “Your sermon was too long, Seb. Couldn’t understand half of it and I’m sure the lads didn’t.” Lady Veronica always referred to the students as lads. Father Martin sometimes imagined that she thought her husband was running a set of racing stables.
It was noticed that the Warden had always been at his most relaxed and cheerful when his wife was in college. Father Martin’s imagination obdurately refused to encompass the idea of Father Sebastian and Lady Veronica in the matrimonial bed, but he had had no doubt, seeing them together, that they had liked each other very much indeed. It was, he thought, one more manifestation of the variety and peculiarities of the married state of which he, as a lifelong bachelor, had never been more than a fascinated observer. Perhaps, he thought, a great liking was as important as love, and more durable.
Father Sebastian said, “When Raphael arrives I shall, of course, speak to him about the Archdeacon’s visit. He feels very strongly about Father John indeed, he sometimes seems hardly rational on the subject. It isn’t going to help things if he provokes an open quarrel. It could do nothing but harm to the college. He’ll have to learn that the Archdeacon is both a trustee of the college and a guest and must be treated with the respect due to a priest.”
Father Peregrine said, “Wasn’t Inspector Yarwood the police officer in charge of the case when the Archdeacon’s first wif
e committed suicide?”
His fellow priests looked at him in surprise. It was the kind of information Father Peregrine tended to acquire. It sometimes seemed that his subconscious was a repository of assorted facts and snippets of news which he could bring to mind at will.
Father Sebastian said, “Are you sure? The Cramptons were living in North London at that time. He didn’t move to Suffolk until after his wife’s death. It would have been a matter for the Metropolitan Police.”
Father Peregrine said placidly, “One reads these things. I remember the account of the inquest. I think you’ll find that it was an officer called Roger Yarwood who gave evidence. He was a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police at the time.”
Father Sebastian creased his brow.
“This is awkward. I’m afraid that when they meet as they inevitably will it will bring back painful memories for the Archdeacon. But it can’t be helped. Yarwood needs a period of rest and recuperation and the room has been promised. He was very useful to the college three years ago, before he was promoted, when he was on traffic duties and Father Peregrine backed into that stationary lorry. As you know, he’s been coming to Sunday Mass fairly regularly and I think he finds it helpful. If his presence awakes distressing memories then the Archdeacon will have to cope with them as Father John copes with his. I shall arrange for Emma to be in Ambrose immediately next to the church, Commander Dalgliesh in Jerome, then the Archdeacon in Augustine and Roger Yarwood in Gregory.”
They were in for an uncomfortable weekend, thought Father Martin. It would be deeply distressing for Father John to have to meet the Archdeacon, and Crampton himself was unlikely to welcome the encounter although it could hardly be unexpected; he must know that Father John was at St. Anselm’s. And if Father Peregrine were right and he invariably was a meeting between the Archdeacon and Inspector Yarwood was likely to embarrass them both. It would be difficult to control Raphael or to keep him apart from the Archdeacon; he was, after all, the senior ordinand. And then there was Stannard. Apart from any devious motives in coming to St. Anselm’s he was never an easy guest. Most problematic of all would be the presence of Adam Dalgliesh, an implacable reminder of unhappy events which they thought they had put behind them, viewing them with his experienced and sceptical eyes.
He was roused from his reverie by Father Sebastian’s voice.
“And now I think we’ll have our coffee.”
Raphael Arbuthnot came in and stood waiting with the graceful assurance that was typical of him. His black cassock with its row of covered buttons, unlike those of other ordinands, looked newly tailored, elegantly fitting; its dark austerity, contrasting with Raphael’s pale face and shining hair, imposed a look which, paradoxically, was both hieratic and theatrical. Father Sebastian could never see him alone without a tinge of unease. He was himself a handsome man and had always valued perhaps overvalued -handsomeness in other men and beauty in women. Only with his wife had it seemed unimportant. But he found beauty in a man disconcerting, even a little repellent. Young men, and particularly young English men, should not look like a slightly dissolute Greek god. It was not that there was anything androgynous about Raphael, but Father Sebastian was always aware that this was a beauty more likely to appeal to men rather than to women, even if it had no power to stir his own heart.
And there came again to mind the most insistent of the many worries which made it difficult to spend time with Raphael without a renewal of old misgivings. How valid really was his vocation? And should the college have agreed to take him on as an ordinand when he was already, as it were, part of the family? St. Anselm’s had been the only home he’d known since his mother, the last Arbuthnot, had dumped him on the college, a two-week-old baby, illegitimate and unwanted, twenty-five years ago. Wouldn’t it have been wiser, perhaps indeed prudent, to have encouraged him to look elsewhere, to apply to Cuddesdon or St. Stephen’s House at Oxford? Raphael himself had insisted on training at St. Anselm’s. Hadn’t there been the subtle threat that it was here or nowhere? Perhaps the college had been too accommodating in their anxiety not to lose to the Church the last of the Arbuthnots. Well, it was too late now and it was irritating how often these fruitless worries about Raphael would keep intruding on more immediate if mundane matters. Resolutely he put them aside and addressed himself to college concerns.
“A few minor details first, Raphael. Students who persist in parking in front of the college must do so more tidily. As you know, I prefer cars and motorcycles to be left outside the college buildings at the rear. If they have to be parked in the front courtyard, at least take some care. This is something which particularly irritates Father Peregrine. And will students please remember not to use the washing machines after Compline. Father Peregrine finds the noise distracting. And, now we are without Mrs. Munroe, I have agreed that bed-linen for the present shall be changed fortnightly. The linen will be available in the linen-room and students should help themselves to what they require and change their own beds. We are advertising for a replacement but it may take some time.”
“Yes, Father. I’ll mention these matters.”
“There are two more important items. This Friday we shall be having a visit from a Commander Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard. Apparently Sir Aired Treeves is dissatisfied with the inquest verdict on Ronald and has asked the Yard to make enquiries. I don’t know how long he will be with us, probably only for the weekend. Naturally we shall all co-operate with the Commander. That means answering his questions fully and honestly, not venturing opinions.”
“But Ronald’s been cremated, Father. What can Commander Dalgliesh hope to prove now? Surely he can’t overturn the findings of the inquest?”
“I imagine not. I think it’s more a question of satisfying Sir Aired that there was a thorough investigation of his son’s death.”
“But that’s ridiculous, Father. The Suffolk Police were very thorough. What else can the Yard hope to discover now?”
“Very little, I imagine. Anyway, Commander Dalgliesh is coming and will occupy Jerome. There will be other visitors. Inspector Yarwood is arriving for a recuperative holiday. He needs rest and quiet and I imagine will take some of his meals in his room. Mr. Stannard will be back continuing his research in the library. And Archdeacon Crampton is expected for a short visit. He will arrive on Saturday and plans to leave immediately after breakfast on Sunday. I have invited him to preach the homily at Compline on Saturday night. It will be a small congregation, but that can’t be helped.”
Raphael said, “If I’d known that, Father, I’d have taken good care not to be here.”
“I realize that. I expect you as senior student to be here at least until after Compline and to treat him with the courtesy that you should extend to a visitor, an older man and a priest.”
“I have no trouble with the first two, it’s the third which sticks in my throat. How can he face us, face Father John, after what he’s done?”
“I imagine, like the rest of us, he takes solace from the satisfaction of believing that at the time he did what he thought was right.”
Raphael’s face flushed. He exclaimed, “How can he think he was right a priest hounding another priest into prison? It would be disgraceful if anyone did it. Coming from him it’s abominable. And Father John the gentlest, the kindest of men.”
“You forget, Raphael, that Father John pleaded guilty at his trial.”
“He pleaded guilty to mis behaviour with two young boys. He didn’t rape them, he didn’t seduce them, he didn’t physically hurt them. All right, he pleaded guilty, but he wouldn’t have been sent to prison if Crampton hadn’t made it his business to start delving into the past, digging up those three youths, persuading them to come forward with evidence. What the hell business was it of his anyway?”
“He saw it as his business. We have to remember that Father John also pleaded guilty to those more serious charges.”
“Of course he did. He pleaded guilty because he felt guilty. He feels guilty at just
being alive. But mainly it was to prevent those youths perjuring themselves in the witness-box. That’s what he couldn’t bear, the harm it would do them, the harm they’d do to themselves by lying in court. He wanted to spare them that, at the cost of going to prison.”
Father Sebastian said sharply, “Did he tell you that? Have you actually discussed this with him?”
“Not really, not directly. But that’s the truth of it, I know it is.”
Father Sebastian felt uncomfortable. That could well be. It was something he had thought out for himself. But this delicate psychological perception was appropriate to him as a priest; coming from a student he found it disconcerting. He said, “You had no right, Raphael, to talk to Father John about this. He’s served his sentence and he’s come to live and work with us here. The past is behind him. It’s unfortunate if he has to meet the Archdeacon but it won’t be made easier for him or for anyone if you attempt to interfere. We all have our darkness within. Father John’s is between him and God, or for him and his confessor. For you to intervene is spiritual arrogance.”
Raphael seemed hardly to have heard. He said, “And we know why Crampton’s coming, don’t we? To nose about getting fresh evidence against the college. He wants to see us closed down. He made that obvious as soon as the Bishop appointed him as one of the trustees.”
“And if he’s treated with discourtesy then he will be provided with the additional evidence he needs. I’ve kept St. Anselm’s open by such influence as I have and by carrying on quietly with my work, not by antagonizing powerful enemies. This is a difficult time for the college and Ronald Treeves’s death didn’t help.” He paused, then asked a question that until now he had left unspoken. He said, “You must have discussed that death among yourselves. What view of it was taken by the ordinands ?”
He saw that the question was unwelcome. There was a pause before Raphael replied.
“I think, Father, the general view was that Ronald killed himself.”